A PHOTOGRAPHY exhibition entitled, "Pictures from the Surface of the Earth" by renowned German film director Wim Wenders opens at the Shanghai Art Museum since March 26.

This acclaimed series has been exhibited around the world since 2001 and was exhibited in Beijing in February.

The exhibition presents a selection of large images, some over 4 metres in length, captured by Wenders over the past two decades while scouting for film locations or while on personal travels across Australia, Cuba, Germany and the US.

Among the 37 works are panoramic landscapes of the American west that were part of Wenders' first photographic exhibition in 1983 entitled "Written in the West". There are also colourful city vistas and streetscapes taken on location while filming "The Buena Vista Social Club" in Havana in 1998, and chilling photographs of Ground Zero, New York.

As a leading director of the New German Cinema in the 1970s, Wenders had, by the mid-1980s, established himself as a cult figure on the international film scene. His film credits include the award-winning musical documentary "Buena Vista Social Club" (1998), "Paris, Texas" (1984), "Wings of Desire" (1987) and "The Million Dollar Hotel" (2000).

As a prolific, multi-faceted artist, Wenders channels his creative energy and extraordinary visual sensibility into work across a broad range of media, including watercolours and ink drawings, photography and electronic images. He has also published numerous books, collections of photographs and essays, reflections on film-making and other photographic and art books.

Although versatile and whimsical in form, Wenders says his artistic spirit is rooted in the German philosophical tradition. He is fond of narration rather than purely depicting feelings - the main topic of modernism in Germany.

In his photos, an art space of "human absence" is constructed, a dimension without human figures but redolent of humanity. In the space, nature, structures and appliances are always combined to tell a story of humanity, a story passing through the epoch of modernization.

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Wenders utilizes the truth of stories to replace the vision of artwork and only in stories which may not seem concrete, he believes, is there a pure place for expression and communication.

Like other directors of New German Cinema, such as Werner Herzog and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wenders follows the narrative form of traditional German theatre to construct a kind of panoramic lens which includes several different dimensions constructing a whole story. Each of Wenders' photos looks like the first scene of a film, everything is ready to be cut into a whole story.

Wenders stands out as a modernist narrator, but he discards some forms of expression and the latest technology. He steadfastly promulgates his modernism in a sub-modernist way. As a sub-modern modernist, his photographs are accessible but profound. He recalls things erased by the brilliant modern epoch and things obliterated by the puff of modern art.

March 26 - April 19

Shanghai Art Museum

325 Nanjing Xilu

Tel: 6327-2829